Book picks similar to
Back on the Court by Sonya G. Elliott
memoir
sports
basketball
great-reads
Breaking The Chain: Drugs and Cycling - The True Story
Willy Voet - 2011
In his car were the drugs the team needed if they were to have any chance of playing a competitive part in the 1998 Tour de France. The car was searched, he was immediately arrested and so the story that has been undermining the sport of cycling since the death of Tommy Simpson in 1967, finally broke. Imprisoned for sixteen days, sacked from the Festina team and ostracised from the sport to which he had dedicated his life, Willy Voet at last was able to tell the truth. His sensational story will change cycling forever.Cocaine, amphetamines, EPO, heroin - all these are now considered not optional but necessary, not to win but just to compete in the Tour de France. Details of how these drugs are obtained, mixed together to make cocktails, administered and concealed are all included in this graphic and uninhibited account of how drugs brought cycling to its knees.
Loose Balls: Easy Money, Hard Fouls, Cheap Laughs, & True Love in the NBA
Jayson Williams - 2000
From revelations about the meanest, softest, and smelliest players in the league, to Williams’s early days as a “young man with a lot of money and not a lot of sense,” to his strong and powerful views on race, privilege, and giving back, Loose Balls is a basketball book unlike any other.No inspirational pieties or chest-thumping boasting here—instead, Jayson Williams gives us the real insider tales of refs, groupies, coaches, entourages, and all the superstars, bench warmers, journeymen, clowns, and other performers in the rarefied circus that is professional basketball.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Bulletproof Putting in Five Easy Lessons: The Streamlined System for Weekend Golfers (Golf Instruction for Beginner and Intermediate Golfers Book 2)
Michael McTeigue - 2014
The secret to lower scoring is to sink more putts of eight feet or less while consistently lagging long putts close to the hole to avoid three putting. The Bulletproof Putting System teaches you to do exactly that, in five easy lessons. Written for the recreational golfer who has limited practice time and no desire to become a slave to the game, Bulletproof Putting in Five Easy Lessons will help you •Read greens more accurately and visualize the correct roll paths for your putts•Make a dependable putting stroke that hits the ball where you aim•Ingrain your bulletproof pre-shot and in-shot routines to increase confidence•Master the four types of putts: slam dunk, drillable, drainable, and lag•Utilize precious practice and warm up time to your best advantage. Bulletproof Putting in Five Easy Lessons is written in an approachable style by Michael McTeigue, former Northern California PGA Teacher of the Year and author of the popular full-swing instruction classic, The Keys to the Effortless Golf Swing. Michael conducted thousands of golf lessons as a PGA professional at Bel Air Country Club, Riveria Country Club, and Palos Verdes Golf Club in California. His beautifully illustrated new book will improve your putting and enrich your enjoyment of the game. Bulletproof Putting in Five Easy Lessons is certain to become a treasured favorite in your golfing library.
Winner: My Racing Life
A.P. McCoy - 2015
This is it. This is really the end.
I was now a matter of seconds away from the moment all the numbers stopped for ever. My career total of National Hunt winners would remain at 4,348 after this, my 17,546th ride. All the stats, the numbers that had governed my life for the last two decades, they were just a few hundred yards from being stilled for ever. My whole career, my whole adult life, had been built on making those numbers click upwards as fast as I could, but in a couple of furlongs they would never move again.Deciding to retire was the most difficult decision I've ever had to make. Fortunately I was able to go out at the very top, and being able to say that makes me a very, very lucky man indeed. And now, in this book, I've been able to look back over my entire career - both good and bad moments - and see it in its entirety: the biggest wins, the disappointments, the injuries and the tragedies, my wonderful family, and the amazing horses and the fantastic personalities I've worked with.18,000 people turned up to that final race at Sandown, and I can now look back on my career with immense pride and gratitude. But that chapter of my life is closed. This book is the final word on my riding career - it's time to move forward.
I Promised My Mother
Ludvik Wieder - 1984
And with G-d's help, he saved not only himself but also his parents and a host of friends, relatives, and strangers from almost certain death. If Ludvik Wieder's adventures were fiction, they would seem too contrived. But everything told is the unembellished truth. At the age of 26, Ludvik had it all—health, wealth, good looks, popularity, and a growing business in one of Europe's brightest capitals. Then, one dreadful Sunday in the spring of 1943, the Nazis marched into Budapest and imposed a series of repressive measures that threatened the life of every Jew in Hungary. From that day on, all that mattered was survival. Suddenly, life hung by a shred of paper— the proper “Aryan” identification. Determined to survive, Ludvik boldly entered the black market to buy those precious scraps of false identity that might save him and his loved ones from disaster. Soon he was living a double life, outwardly forsaking his Orthodox Jewish upbringing to pose as a gentile, at the same time clinging steadfastly to his beliefs, never for a moment forgetting who he was and where he came from. Soon he became a master of deception— whether it was posing as a trusted “gentile” factory employee, disguising himself as a drunken peasant, or assuming the dress and manner of a member of the Hungarian S.S. Somehow, he had the capacity to enlist the aid of an unlikely assortment of non-Jews, who helped him at the peril of their lives—among them, a peasant woman who befriended him in prison and offered her home as his haven for the duration of the war… a Hungarian Air Force officer, who “adopted” Ludvik's niece as his own illegitimate child, lent him his apartment as a hiding place and smuggled a series of vital ID papers to him… the Skid Row derelict who saved the life of Ludvik's nephew by pretending to be the boy's uncle. The book traces Ludvik's life, beginning with his placid, essentially easygoing boyhood in Czechoslovakia. Then, in 1940, after the Hungarian takeover, he was inducted into forced labor. It describes the cruelty and black humor of the labor camp, which helped him to develop the cunning and ingenuity that enabled him to sharpen his survival skills and avoid being sent to fatal service on the Russian front. The story then focuses on the Nazi occupation, culminating in Ludvik's near-execution at the hands of his Russian liberators. Armed with optimism, unswerving faith in the Almighty, and his own resourcefulness, Ludvik never let fear keep him from doing whatever was necessary to save himself and his fellow Jews. Throughout his heart-stopping adventures —and even in the darkest moments of despair, when events propelled him to the brink of suicide—Ludvik was motivated to go on by consummate devotion to his beloved mother. He knew he had to survive, for he had promised her he would.
We Always Had Paris
Templeton Peck - 2020
She was a New Yorker, had just turned forty, and was about to put her youngest child in college. He was pushing 50 and relishing a sabbatical from his San Francisico law practice. Opposites attracted. A few weeks later they were engaged. A year later they were honeymooning on bicycles in Burgundy, after a wedding in a chapel at JFK. And after five years in San Francisco, they sold their house, quit their jobs and moved to Paris -- “permanently,” they said. For seven years their home was in a foreign country, in a foreign culture, bathed in a foreign language, on the rue des Marronniers in the 16th Arrondissement of the most beautiful city in the world. We Always Had Paris is the story of their adventure. It really happened. It is also a love story.
Silver Lining
Elizabeth Beisel - 2020
When Elizabeth Beisel watched the Olympics on television for the first time, she was seven years old in her parents’ living room. She decided right then and there she would compete at the Olympic Games one day. Eight years later, she made her first of three Olympic Teams as a fifteen-year-old. Despite her huge success in the sport, Elizabeth struggled with doubts, failures, and injuries throughout her entire swimming career. In Silver Lining, she he gives a compelling look inside the pressures that come with being an Olympian, and how she mentally conquered the stress of competing at the highest level for over a decade. From a small-town girl with a dream, to winning Olympic medals, Elizabeth gives you a glimpse inside her life as you’ve never seen it before. She is relatable, open, and honest, and her storytelling in Silver Lining> will leave you feeling emotional and inspired to pursue your own dreams, no matter who you are. Reviews “Silver Lining is a story of amazing perseverance of one of the greatest leaders in our sports history.” – Rowdy Gaines “You will be inspired, and also discover why Elizabeth is one of the most respected athletes to grace a pool deck for Team USA.” –
Katie Ledecky
“Elizabeth wonderfully captures what it means to be an elite athlete. Silver Lining shows how perseverance, dedication, and a support team can help one overcome life’s biggest obstacles.”
– Caeleb Dressel
About the Author Elizabeth Beisel is a three-time Olympic swimmer and two-time Olympic medalist for the United States of America. Visit her at www.elizabethbeisel.com.
Like Rain on a Dry Place: A Birth Mother's Story
Wendy Salisbury Howe - 2016
What is it like? It is the best gift you can ever imagine, like rain falling on a dry place.This memoir is a great reunion journey, from Paris, to California, to Denmark! A coming together of a mother and son, the only two people who can answer all the questions the other one has.
Life in a Jungle: My Autobiography
Bruce Grobbelaar - 2018
And yet, question marks have followed him around; question marks about his goalkeeping suitability after arriving on Merseyside; question marks about his integrity after match fixing allegations were laid against him. Here, Grobbelaar takes you to Africa, where nothing is at it seems; he takes you back to an era when Liverpool ruled Europe; he takes you to the benches of the Anfield dressing room, where only the strongest personalities survived. For the first time, he takes you inside the court room, detailing the draining fight to clear his name.
Who Ate All The Pies? The Life and Times of Mick Quinn
Mick Quinn - 2003
They said Mick had a sixth sense for great accuracy in his playing days - he could find a party from any range. Quinn says he only put £50 on each horse race - but liked to stay in the bookies for twenty races a day!Sentenced in 1987 to three weeks in prison for twice driving whilst banned, Mick's been accused of punching Peter Schmeichel on the football pitch and John Fashanu off it. On retirement, though, Quinn switched to horse racing, the Sport of Kings, but controversy led the blue bloods of racing to hang the scouse oik out to dry and he was suspended from training for two and a half years.Who Ate All The Pies? is the funniest and most honest football book you'll read for a long, long time.
Best Seat in the House
Spike Lee - 1998
The first is professional basketball's metamorphosis from a fringe sport whose championship games would air tape-delayed at 11:30 p.m., after the local news had already given the scores, to become the big-money sports spectacular it is today, filled with outrageously inflated salaries and egos. The other journey is that of Shelton Jackson Lee himself, who has gone from a skinny kid playing ball on the streets of Brooklyn, sneaking into Madison Square Garden to watch his beloved Knicks, to Morehouse College and NYU film school, to being a world-renowned film director and hoops fan. The book charts Spike's artistic journey from his first college film (Super 8), called "Last Hustle in Brooklyn," and his gradual move down from the raucous, nosebleed blue seats just below the Garden's rafters, closer and closer to the on-court action until, in the year "Malcolm X" was released, Spike landed the coveted courtside seats he has today - the best seats in the house. From there, his blue-seat emotions, transplanted to within arm's reach of the action, have led to numerous confrontations with refs and opposing players - some of them public, like the notorious Reggie Miller incident - but most never before discussed. Along the way Spike takes readers on entertaining and provocative detours, including a one-on-one with that other film-directing, Brooklyn-born, Garden-inhabiting hoops fan, Woody Allen; reviews of sports movies (Spike has seen them all, and the results aren't pretty); an unusually candid and revelatory interview with Michael Jordan; and astark assessment of the role of African-American athletes both in the big business of sports and in the broader culture.
Truman Fires MacArthur: (ebook excerpt of Truman)
David McCullough - 2010
An unpopular war. A military and diplomatic team in disarray. Those are the challenges President Obama has faced as he attempts to make a success of U.S involvement in Afghanistan. They are also the challenges President Truman surmounted in the winter of 1950 as he began managing a war in Korea that risked becoming bigger and more costly. It was the first significant armed conflict of the Cold War: United States troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur came to the aid of the South Koreans after North Korea invaded. When Communist China entered the conflict on the side of the North Koreans, the crisis seemed on the verge of flaring into a world war. Truman was determined not to let that happen. MacArthur kept urging a widening of the war into China itself and ignoring his Commander in Chief. On April 11, 1951, after MacArthur had “shot his mouth off,” as one diplomat put it, one too many times, Truman fired him. The story of their showdown—one of the most dramatic in U.S. history between a Commander in Chief and his top soldier in the field—is captured in all its detail by David McCullough in his biography Truman, and presented here in a e-book called Truman Fires MacArthur (an excerpt of Truman, McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography), which was the headline carried in many newspapers around the country the next day. Truman Fires MacArthur will continue to ride the headlines. It will go on sale as an ebook just as the Rolling Stone profile that exposed General Stanley McChrystal’s insurrection and forced his resignation hits newsstands, and media coverage of the showdown continues to draw historical analogies between Truman and Obama.
Perseverance
Kristin Peck - 2014
Now, graduating from business school, newly married, Kristin is ready to take the next step of starting a family. But when Kristin’s first pregnancy ends with a miscarriage, she is devastated. When her second pregnancy does as well, Kristin and her husband Bob turn to in vitro fertilization – and are heartbroken again after a third miscarriage. Undaunted, they turn to alternate options, including surrogacy and adoption, but face setbacks at every turn, some so unthinkable that they never could have been predicted. In the most extreme of circumstances, when all of our careful plans are thrown out the window, how do we persevere? In spite of the pain and sorrow of the many years spent trying to start their family, Kristin and Bob remain positive, loving, and driven – and learn in their ultimately rewarding journey that life’s joys come more from the unexpected than from the expected.100% of Kristin Peck’s proceeds from the sale of Perseverance will be donated to Family and Children's Agency.Kristin Peck is thrilled to be the working mother of two amazing children. She keeps herself sane by belting out her favorite pop and country songs while running and completing triathlons, and is proud to have recently completed her first marathon. She is currently EVP, Group President of Zoetis, Inc., the world's largest animal health company. Kristin received her bachelor’s from Georgetown and her MBA from Columbia Business School. Kristin, her husband, two children and their dog live in CT. Perseverance is her first book.Cover design by Hannah Perrine Mode.
Long Shots: Jay Wright, Villanova, and College Basketball’s Most Unlikely Champion
Dana O'Neil - 2017
The shot and second national title in school history were the culmination of 15 years of Coach Jay Wright painstakingly building the unheralded program, through ups and downs, heartbreak and triumph. In Long Shots: Jay Wright, Villanova, and College Basketball’s Most Unlikely Champion, ESPN senior writer Dana O’Neil uses exclusive access to Coach Wright and Nova basketball to delve into the inner-workings of a championship program. In the spirit of A Season on the Brink, O’Neil not only explores behind-the-scenes of the historic 2015-2016 NCAA championship season but also the improbable path that the Nova program took to college basketball immortality. In overcoming a disappointing NCAA Tournament track record, the breakup of the Big East conference as we knew it, and Nova’s underdog status among traditional college hoops powerhouses, Jay Wright and his team provided the blueprint for how a “have-not” can prevail over the blue bloods the right way – the Villanova Basketball Way.
Who Says You Can't Go Home?: An Autobiography
B. Loren - 2021
It is isolating, painful, and confusing. Loneliness and longing are your reality. You’re consumed with guilt, self-deprecating inner dialogue, and worst of all, the fear of doing even the smallest thing wrong. You spend a lot of time alone…even when you’re not. You watch a lot of TV.Obviously, this is all your fault. Obviously, the reason you are living this way is because of something you did to warrant it. If they beat you, you deserved it. If they punish you, you asked for it. You never want to go home, but you don’t have a choice because you’ve never had a choice. This is it. This is what you have. This is all you know.And yet, you still smile when you sometimes catch a glimpse of the sweeter things and treasure the smallest kindness. Inside, you know life isn’t supposed to be like this, but it is. Your life is like a bubble of poison gas that could burst at any moment…you know that. You live that. But how are you supposed to make sense of any of this? How do you make it stop?You can’t.You are powerless.You haven’t even reached kindergarten yet.From a severely abusive childhood in the inner city of Baltimore, a string of unsatisfying relationships and several broken marriages, to a six-figure income from the multi-million dollar business I built out of my home, this is my story in my own words.I was stolen as a baby when my mother died. I was lied to by my kidnapper and used as a Cinderella punching bag by his never-ending parade of “step-mothers” and girlfriends, and much worse when he didn’t have one.This memoir covers the good, the bad, and the ugly.As this story unfolds, my hope is that you, the reader, will discover a little girl who survived that abusive childhood, healed, and empowered herself through discipline and hard work. I hope you see a girl who became a woman who learned from her mistakes and a whole human being who loves her newfound family with all her heart.I am no longer an outsider. I can go home now.